THE TOBACCO COUNTY

Prince George's County, at its founding in 1696, was
still frontier. But as more and more settlers came, and
more and more land was taken up, the frontier receded.
Within a decade or two the danger of Indian raids from
the unknown beyond disappeared. In a generation's
time, or perhaps a little longer, Prince George's County
became a well-settled land of farms and families, good
roads and byways, of doctors, lawyers, storekeepers, and
merchants. The southern areas of the county, particularly
on the Patuxent side, experienced this change
first, but gradually, as the decades of the eighteenth
century rolled by, so too did the other sections of the
county. By the midpoint of the century not a section of
the county was unsettled. The frontier was gone. The
pioneers were now the men and women of Western
Maryland, beyond the Monocacy, out toward the
mountains. Prince George's County had become a
populous, well-established agricultural community,
where all the amenities of civilized colonial country life
could be found.

The foundation upon which the development of
Prince George's County rested was the culture of
tobacco. Both small farmers and rich planters were
tobacco growers. When the tobacco market was good,
Prince George's County prospered. When the market
was depressed, all Prince Georgeans felt it.

The yearly cycle of tobacco cultivation began in the
late winter or early spring with the sowing of the seeds
in seedbeds. In June the small plants were transplanted
into the fields, into rows of tobacco hills. Every day, all
summer long, the tobacco was weeded, hoed, and
inspected for worms and insects. When flowers began to
appear, the plant tops were broken off to encourage fuller
and stronger leaf growth. A few weeks after topping-
by September -- the plants were four to seven feet high
and ready to be harvested. The entire plant was cut and
hung in barns to dry. Over the winter, the leaves were
stripped off the stalks, tied into hands, and packed into
huge casks called hogsheads. The tobacco then was
ready to be sold or stored. Tobacco commanded such a
leading place in Maryland's colonial economy that it
became a medium of exchange. Taxes were assessed,
debts paid, and land priced not in pounds sterling but in
pounds of tobacco. Maryland could truly be called a
tobacco colony, and Prince George's was without a doubt
a tobacco county.

It was during the eighteenth century that African
slaves were first brought to Prince George's County in
large numbers. Most of the settlers came as small
farmers and worked in the tobacco fields with their
families. But tobacco demanded daily attention, and the
most a farmer could tend himself was two or three
acres. To increase production beyond this subsistence
level -- to better himself economically -- the farmer
needed additional labor. In the seventeenth century,
those who could afford extra hands usually took on
indentured servants. But that changed in the eighteenth
century. As the farmers and planters became more
numerous and prosperous, they found that their need
for additional labor could no longer be met by the supply
of indentured servants, whose numbers were limited
and terms of service temporary. So instead of indentured
servants they turned to slave labor. By the early
eighteenth century approximately a quarter of the
households in Prince George's County owned slaves. By
the 1750s that figure may have reached half; it was
indeed that high by the time of the American Revolution.
Slaveholding, then, was not confined to a small upper
class. It was widespread in eighteenth-century Prince
George's County.

What kind of lives did slaves lead in Prince George's
County? Whether they lived on large plantations or
small ones, working with other slaves or alone, most
were farm laborers. They worked in the tobacco fields in
the summer and did other farm chores during the rest of
the year. Some, on the largest plantations, were taught
trades such as carpentry or cooperage, but their
numbers were few. In the early years most slaves, of
course, were African-born and spoke a bewildering
assortment of African tongues. Wrenched from their
homelands, deprived of their freedom, and thrust into an
alien environment, they must have had most difficult
lives, for they had neither families, friends, nor familiar
institutions to comfort them. By the 1750s, however,
most slaves here were American-born, born into an
evolving and distinct Afro-American culture that helped
them cope with slavery and maintain feelings of
personal worth and dignity. They grew up with
brothers, sisters, and other relatives; as adults they often
worked with their families and others they had known
since childhood. Their lives were much different from
those of the first generation of slaves. Although their
destinies were controlled by whites, their personal lives,
at least, were lived in a supportive, sympathetic, and
familiar Afro-American culture.

Family and kin relationships were particularly
important to the slaves, even though they were denied
traditional family life. While slave marriages were
allowed, even between slaves of different plantations,
there were no guarantees that husbands and wives
could ever live together or would not be separated.
Women thus raised the children. While babies and small
children were rarely taken from them, the older ones
sometimes were. However, since most slave sales were
between relatives or planters who lived near each other,
separation did not always mean total loss of contact. Just
as particular areas and neighborhoods were identified
with certain white families, so too were the slaves of
those neighborhoods often interrelated. A community
life did develop among slaves, even if it was constrained
by the realities of the slave system. Christianity was
encouraged, and it was embraced by many.

By the middle of the eighteenth century almost half
of this county's population was slave. Some areas, such
as the rich plantation neighborhoods near Upper Marlboro,
were 60 to 70 percent black. Slavery was a part of
life here, and the contributions of the slaves to the
building of colonial Prince George's County cannot be
overstated.

First the planters and slaves grew tobacco in Prince George's County, and then they built
towns. Actually, towns developed slowly in colonial Prince George's. From
the earliest settlement, the population was widely
scattered and so was economic and social activity. Inns,
churches, mills, blacksmiths, and artisans were scattered across the countryside.

Planters and farmers sold their tobacco to merchants or their agents at local landings, and there
they received goods shipped from abroad. Sometimes wealthy
planters kept stocks of merchandise for sale, but most
often shopping was done when the ships came in.
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, on several occasions, the Maryland General
Assembly directed the establishment of towns. The
purpose was to encourage trade and commerce. The
assembly further ordered that no tobacco be exported
nor goods imported except at these locations. This order
proved unenforceable, however, and trading went on in
the usual manner, as the planters preferred. The
General Assembly's towns did not really develop into
trading and social centers until the surrounding neighborhoods
were populous and prosperous enough to
encourage merchants to open year-round stores there.
Only then did local planters find it more convenient to
concentrate their buying and selling in these places, and
only then was there enough activity at these sites to
warrant calling them true towns.

Charles Town, at Mount Calvert on the Patuxent
River, was established by law in the 1680s and was the
only town in Prince George's County when it was
erected in 1696. Despite its designation as a county seat,
Charles Town never became much more than a small
village. Several stores and inns operated there, but there
was never much of a resident population. Later, when
the county court moved to Upper Marlboro, it
disappeared.

In 1706 and 1707 the General Assembly directed the
establishment of six more towns in Prince George's
County: Upper Marlboro, Nottingham, Queen Anne,
Mill Town, Piscataway, and Aire (also known as Broad
Creek). The first four named were on the Patuxent side
of the county, the last two on the Potomac side. Upper
Marlboro was the first of these to develop. It lay in the
heart of rich tobacco country, in an area that became the
most densely settled in colonial Prince George's County.
Merchants saw the possibilities of the place and located
there; so did innkeepers, tradesmen, and craftsmen. It so
eclipsed nearby Charles Town that it was made the
county seat in 1721. Among the inhabitants of colonial
Upper Marlboro could be found a wigmaker, weaver
tailor, staymaker, coachmaker, and saddler. Concerts,
balls, and horse races were among the diversions that
entertained the townspeople and brought planters to
town; sometimes traveling theater troupes also came
through. Slaves could be bought in Upper Marlboro,
too. The Maryland Gazette for March 14, 1765, advertised
"Eleven valuable negroes: three men, three women
three girls, and five children." By mid-century, several
hundred people lived in and around the town, many of
them Scottish immigrants who built Prince George's
County's first Presbyterian church.

Nottingham, Queen Anne, Piscataway, and Broad
Creek did not grow as quickly or as large as Upper
Marlboro, but they did become thriving little places in
themselves, centers for buying, selling, and socializing in
their Patuxent and Potomac river neighborhoods. Of the
five towns established by the assembly in 1705 and 1706,
only Mill Town failed to develop. As the northern
sections of the county were settled, towns developed
there, too. The first town in the northern section was
Bealltown, located on the Northwest Branch near
present-day Hyattsville. Bealltown grew up in the 1720s
and 1730s, and like the older towns it became the home
of merchants, innkeepers, and craftsmen. But Bealltown
was located a little too far upstream, and the inhabitants
could not keep the stream open for larger vessels. In
1742, the assembly therefore directed the establishment
of Bladensburg a mile or so downstream. Bladensburg
grew quickly, and soon Bealltown was abandoned.
Bladensburg's port, located on the Anacostia River (then
called the Eastern Branch), easily accommodated the
large vessels Bealltown could not. By the time of the
Revolution, Bladensburg was one of the most active
tobacco ports in Maryland, exporting more tobacco than
any other on the Western Shore. Some early industrial
concerns were also built there: a tannery, a shipyard, a
ropewalk, and a gunpowder plant. The traffic on two
new important roads-the road up to Frederick County
and the road north (today's Route One) added to the
town's bustle Bladensburg, in the colonial era, was
second only to Upper Marlboro in population and
importance, and there were many -- particularly in
Bladensburg -- who wished to see the county seat
moved there.

A change in the method of marketing tobacco
further encouraged the growth of towns in Prince
George's County in the second half of the eighteenth
century. In 1747, in response to years of poor prices for
Maryland tobacco and numerous complaints from
merchants concerning its quality, the General Assembly
established a formal system of tobacco inspection and
quality control. No longer could planters sell their
tobacco directly to tobacco merchants. Instead, they first
had to bring it in to public tobacco warehouses for
inspection and grading. There, after inspection, the
hogsheads could be stored, and the planters would
receive certificates stating the quantity deposited. Tobacco
marketing thus moved away from all the small local
landings and became concentrated at the sites of these
warehouses. Of the seven tobacco warehouses initially
established in Prince George's County, six were in
towns --Upper Marlboro, Bladensburg, Queen Anne,
Nottingham, Piscataway, and Broad Creek. The other
was at Magruder's Landing, a place on the Patuxent
River in the county's southeastern corner. This system of
tobacco inspection seemed to work, and the planters
themselves sought its renewal in subsequent assembly
sessions. The towns benefited, too, for they profited from
the increased activity the warehouses brought them.

In concluding the story of Prince George's colonial
towns, it is necessary to mention four other towns, two
in Prince George's County and two nearby. The first,
Hamburgh, was located on land which is now part of the
District of Columbia, on the Potomac River near Constitution
Avenue. Founded in 1767, it was a German town,
the only colonial settlement of non-Britons within the
post-1748 bounds of Prince George's County. The other
county town, Carrollsburgh, was founded in 1771 and
was located at Buzzard's Point, now in southwest Washington, D.C.
Neither Hamburgh nor Carrollsburgh grew
to much size, however, and they existed more on plat
maps and in sales books than they did in reality. Two
nearby towns outside of Prince George's County did,
however, become important centers of commerce.
Alexandria, on the Virginia side of the Potomac, became
a leading seaport and the commercial center for all of
Northern Virginia. Georgetown, at Rock Creek, was
located just below the falls of the Potomac River, and in
the 1750s and 1760s it became the center of trade in
lower Frederick County. When Montgomery County was
erected in 1776, Georgetown was its only port accessible
to seagoing ships.

The colonial towns of Prince George's County were
important in the county's development, for commercial,
social, and cultural opportunities could be found there
that were not present in the countryside. But it must be
remembered that most inns, churches, mills, black-smiths,
artisans, and even merchants were still out in
the country, and that colonial Prince George's County
remained very much an agricultural county.

To those acquainted with our history, the phrase
"colonial Prince George's County" brings to mind the
great homes that are the enduring legacy of that era.
They are our pride, testaments to the wealth and grace
that once were the hallmarks of Prince George's society.
Not everyone in the colonial era lived in such houses,
though; indeed, most did not. But in an age much more
deferential to wealth and social position than this one,
the owners of those homes set the tone of public life, and
Prince George's County gained a reputation as a place of
fine and gracious living.

How different the Prince George's County of the late
colonial era was from that of 1696! The frontier was
gone, and with it the unbounded opportunity and social
mobility that could be found there. The plantation
system of tobacco and slaves brought wealth to many,
but it also transformed the frontier into a much less
fluid, more stratified society. Families who accumulated
wealth in the early years -- wealth in the form of land
and slaves -- passed it on from one generation to the
next, giving rise to a hereditary gentry of wealth, power,
and social position. It became harder and harder for
people of average means to buy the land and labor
necessary to raise enough tobacco to become wealthy;
indeed, it became more difficult, even with a slave or
two, to maintain a moderately comfortable lifestyle. No
longer could an indentured servant like Ninian Beall
expect to become a man of wealth and power. By the end
of the colonial era, new immigrants from Europe, ambitious men
and women of lesser means, and even the
younger sons of the local gentry were leaving Prince
George's County behind for opportunity elsewhere. By
1790 the free population of Prince George's County
reached 10,000 and stopped growing. It would not grow
again as long as the plantation system survived.

The Prince George's County of the late colonial era
was much different from the frontier county of 1696 in
another important respect, too: the matter of religion.
The Church of England was newly established as the
state church of Maryland when Prince George's County
was erected, and most residents were still unchurched,
with little contact with organized religion. But gradually,
over the years, that unchurched society became an
Anglican one. Small Catholic and Presbyterian minorities
clung to their faiths, but through the course of the
eighteenth century most Prince Georgeans came to
think of themselves as Anglicans, at least at baptism,
wedding, and burying times. Methodism was introduced
here in the 1770s and quickly attracted many adherents,
but religious diversification went no further. Save for a
few scattered individuals, Prince Georgeans at the close
of the century were either Anglican, Methodist, Catholic,
or Presbyterian.

Prince Georgeans, like their counterparts elsewhere
in the thirteen colonies, participated in the great events
of the Revolution. They formed local committees of correspondence
and safety, organized boycotts of British
goods, and went off to war to fight for the cause of independence.
A few-notably members of the Anglican
clergy and the Calvert family -- sat out the conflict, but
active Loyalists were hard to find. British ships
occasionally entered the Potomac and Patuxent rivers,
harassing the planters on their banks, but the enemy
never launched a serious invasion. The greatest excitement
came in 1781 when British ships put some men
ashore at the mouth of Piscataway Creek to forage for
food. Several parties came ashore over the course of several
days, each time encountering resistance from the
local militia. The ships finally departed.

Since Maryland was not the scene of any major
fighting during the Revolution, Prince George's Revolutionary
War heroes won their glory elsewhere: Rezin
Beall at Harlem Heights, Luke Marbury at Germantown;
and Edward Duvall at the siege of Ninety-Six,
South Carolina, to name only three. Others contributed
to the cause of independence through statecraft. Prior to
the war, William Murdock, of Padsworth Farm (near
Queen Anne), represented Maryland at the Stamp Act
Congress of 1765. John Rogers of Upper Marlboro sat in
Congress on the day the Declaration of Independence
was approved -- and voted for its adoption -- but failed to
return to Philadelphia to add his signature to the document
once it was engrossed. Thus Prince George's
County cannot claim to be the home of a Signer, and the
name of John Rogers, remembered locally, is forgotten in
other parts of the nation he voted into being.

Perhaps the most noteworthy contribution Prince
George's County made to the Revolutionary cause came
not in battle or in statecraft, but in the less dramatic
field of military supply. Stephen West -- importer,
exporter, and owner of several stores in the county -- turned his plantation,
The Woodyard (once a Darnall property) into a great gun manufactory. His slaves built
and repaired muskets for Maryland troops, and they
made powder, blankets, stockings, and woolen cloth as
well. Another county merchant, Christopher Lowndes,
supplied the infant Maryland navy with cordage from
his ropewalk near Bladensburg. The economic sacrifices
of the families at home were great during the war, but at
its conclusion, with peace and nationhood secured,
Prince Georgeans returned to their lives of old, whatever
their places were in the tobacco society of two hundred
years ago.

Return to the Index of "Prince George's
County: a Pictorial History" or continue
reading from here.